18:13Daniel Priestley · Essay
Business Advice You Must Know at Every Level
An 18-minute YouTube essay that maps every business onto a 7-level pyramid — and names the trap inside each level.
February 17th 2026§ 01 · The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Josiah Grimes has built, operated, and scaled more businesses than most people have started — and for 87 minutes, he sits across from Cole Gordon and pulls the curtain back on exactly what breaks at each revenue stage, why the 30M plateau is a toolkit problem and not a marketing problem, and why you would almost rather hire someone stable with no skills than someone skilled but emotionally volatile.
Who's talking.
01:08guestJosiah Grimes
00:00hostCole Gordon
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 01:15
01 · Cold open / montage
Rapid-fire clip montage of key quotes from the conversation ahead, then Cole introduces Josiah and his portfolio.
01:15 – 05:47
02 · Zero to $1M
Faith as the prerequisite for hard work. Core competency selection (skill closest to value creation — Dharmesh Shah framework). Fail fast, iterate cheap, don't build the whole thing before testing.
05:47 – 14:30
03 · $1M to $10M
The content equation — most stall because they don't scale creative output. Structure vs. bureaucracy distinction. Hardest phase: hiring for high-potential with low budget, managing professional maturity gaps, setting core hours vs. bureaucracy pushback. Title inflation trap (CTO/COO at 10 people).
14:30 – 23:04
04 · Hiring sidebar: IQ
IQ is the #1 predictor of workplace performance (24-35% of variance). Three proxies: verbal (vocabulary/syntax), spatial (framework thinking), memory (connection of stored knowledge). Bryq tool for cognitive assessment. Memo-writing as verbal IQ filter (Bezos attribution).
23:04 – 35:09
05 · Conscientiousness + stability
Conscientiousness (proclivity to work hard) is second predictor. Life-stage motivation detection in interviews. The stability-multiplies principle: instability at director level disrupts 24+ people. 'Specific story when' interview technique. Elon-style detail test for resume verification.
35:09 – 42:05
06 · $10M to $30M
Data integrity is the #1 unlock — without clean data, you cannot find the constraint. Task management system adoption. Playbooks and onboarding. Budgeting and first internal audit. LTV expansion: owned audience, affiliate partnerships, software add-ons.
42:05 – 48:27
07 · C-suite hiring
CFO needs both accounting (past) and FP&A (future) prowess. CMO mistake: hiring a great marketer who cannot build a management layer underneath them. Age/experience curve: best execs are late-30s to 50s (fluid + crystallized intelligence overlap). Use recruiting firms for C-suite.
48:27 – 1:00:33
08 · $30M to $100M
Sub2 case study: network effects where every new member increases community value. The 30M plateau is a toolkit problem — if you got to 30M you can get to 100M, but you need the next-level infrastructure: data, directors, org design. CAGR of ~30% is serviceable; Sub2 grew faster.
1:00:33 – 1:08:06
09 · Portfolio vs. one company
Unified leadership across brands = synergies. Separate teams = better focus. Rule: go all-in on one unless you have backfilled yourself as CEO on company #1. Signal to diversify: diminishing marginal returns + approaching TAM. Exit calculus: 8x EBITDA vs. continued compounding.
1:08:06 – 1:13:19
10 · Offer creation (wolf trap)
Tracking 20,000+ education platforms for tailwind signals. Wolf-trap analogy: prospects are wolves — every element of the funnel has to be engineered precisely. Real example: funnel killed by 'in Phoenix, Arizona' reveal at registration after national marketing.
1:13:19 – 1:16:12
11 · Subject matter experts vs. brand visionaries
SMEs excel at curriculum design, framework building, structured learning paths. Brand visionaries excel at storytelling and audience reach. Compensation model differs: SMEs are salaried hires; front-end faces get affiliate/rev-share structures.
1:16:12 – 1:22:25
12 · Investing and wealth
Core maxim: concentrated active income creates wealth, diversified passive income preserves it. Portfolio breakdown: ~50% equities (70% US / 30% international/emerging), 12% real estate (multifamily), 10% gold, 10% crypto, 10% private ventures, 15% cash/bonds. India and Japan as interesting emerging market bets.
1:22:25 – 1:27:23
13 · AI
Mollie (m-a-l-l-i) — AI layer inside NewReach/Sub2 community that facilitates deal flow, connects members, tracks ROI across community interactions. Movable AI platform relaunch in two months. Otherwise: standard operational AI usage across companies.
Lines you could clip.
03:17
“Income traces skills over time. Skills are your ability to solve problems. If you have a lot of skills, you could solve problems. People pay you to solve problems.”
10:14
“Structure is rules that make you more efficient. Bureaucracy is rules that make you less efficient.”
25:40
“You would almost rather have someone stable with no skills. Stability, consistency, maturity, professionalism — as you climb the hierarchy, the risk profile of the company is almost worse if you are skilled but not stable.”
57:43
“If you are stuck around 30 million, you are like, shoot, I can't get to the next level — it is probably a toolkit thing. You have already demonstrated you can sell 30 million. You can probably sell more.”
1:09:10
“In order to actually trap a wolf, the meat had to look like it was an animal that had just died. You had to boil the trap. You had to cover your tracks. And then, finally, you might catch a wolf. The number one reason offers don't work is because the way you prepared it — you couldn't trap a wolf.”
1:16:46
“Create wealth through concentrated active income, then stay wealthy through diversified passive income.”
Things they pointed at.
03:23channelDharmesh Shah / HubSpot - skill closest to value creation framework
17:24conceptJeff Bezos memo culture (Amazon)
48:11channelPatrick Bet-David (mastermind speaker)
1:24:57productMovable AI - Josiah's AI platform relaunch
Word for word.
Cole Gordon
00:00What do think are the biggest keys for zero to a mil? I think the number one reasons why, you know, like, products or offers or anything you wanna sell doesn't work is because Yeah.
00:10It's one to 10. At one to 10, you're probably figuring out where you stair step, but then five to 10, it just breaks down. Like, this is also the freaking hardest part Yeah.
00:17Of the whole gig because you're starting to get to where you can almost pay for good salaries and experienced talent. But a lot of the people that you're hiring, you're hiring for, like, high potential. A lot of people struggle with having a good core leadership team.
00:29Yep. What's kind of your system? You would almost rather have someone with no skills.
00:33That's a more valuable thing to the company. If you're stuck around like 30,000,000, you're like, shoot, I can't get to the next level, it's probably
Josiah Grimes
00:40like that really was the difference between driving between 30 to up to a 100. In this podcast, I interviewed Josiah Grimes. Josiah owns NewReach, which is a portfolio of over 20 brands doing over high 9 figures a year in the education space.
00:54And most notably, he's partners with Pace Morby and Sub two, which does over a $100,000,000 just on its own. So we break down really what Josiah's journey was going from zero to a million, a million to ten, ten to 30, and then 30 to a 100 plus.
01:08And we talk about hiring, interviewing, and so much more. If you're an operator who really wants to scale, this is going to be the podcast for you.
01:17So we'll start with zero to a mil. Yep. What would you think are the most in I know with I know the story was sub two.
01:22You basically just launched it, and you were at 10. Yeah. Yeah.
01:25But just for just for people who don't have the luxury of launching something and being at ten within thirty days. Yeah. You learnings.
01:32What do you think the biggest keys for zero to a mil?
Cole Gordon
01:35Zero to a million? I think, honestly, it's probably it's more of the soft stuff. And some like, it's not, but it is.
01:40Like, some of it is you gotta start with you have to have enough faith. Like, you have to do a lot of hard work in order to get there right, and that means you need have enough faith that you can do it. Right?
01:48A lot of people, if they're if they've never started a business, it's like, I'm gonna go start a biz business and make a million dollars. It's like, okay. Well, that's like a pipe dream.
01:54You know what mean? Yeah. Yeah.
01:55And so then you you're not gonna work hard towards something you don't think is accomplishable. Right? So I think it's like base level, you gotta have some faith that you can accomplish it.
02:03And then two, you gotta be willing to put in the work. Frankly, whatever your main, like, industry or domain is I mean, if you're super just kicking it off, right, and you don't have any core competencies, you probably wanna build up a couple core competencies.
02:16Right? Like Yeah. You had a core competency in copy amongst and sales, right, amongst other things.
02:22But I think if you can build up one or two of those, like, that helps you a long way, like, gets you a lot closer. And then I think it's iterate fast, fail fast.
02:31So and I think we've talked about this, but, like, don't build the whole don't build you don't have to build the whole freaking thing. You know what mean?
02:36So, like, if you're like, I think that I got a great idea. I could start a really cool new energy drink brand. Right?
02:43Alright. Well, before you go and try to find manufacturing and build the recipe and everything else, like, try throwing up a landing page and grab a little bit of traffic.
02:51Yeah. See if you can sell some of them. Because if you can't sell them economically, then, like, you can figure that out in twenty four hours and not spend nine months on it.
02:58Right? Mhmm. Like, don't I think the biggest thing is, like, make your make it very nimble.
03:03Like, your first business, go into a million dollars, make it really nimble, try a lot of things as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible. Don't go get a brick and mortar to begin. You know?
03:12Yeah. Like, those types of I think those are big As a as a side tangent, I'm curious what your thoughts are on this.
Josiah Grimes
03:17I told a lot of people because I think income traces skills over time. Mhmm. So your skills are your ability to solve problems.
03:22If you have a lot of skills, you could solve problems. People pay you to solve problems. All that.
03:25Yeah. And so I think that the easiest way to learn a great skill is to find an industry that you're passionate about. Go work for, like, an up and coming company in that industry that's, like, dynamic.
03:35It's not super bureaucratic. And then go learn a skill in that industry, whatever the skill is, that's closest to the value creation. Mhmm.
03:42And so, like, in software That's great callout. Like that. Develop.
03:46Oh, I got this from who the Darmesh. Okay. I just stole it from him.
03:50It looks good, dude. Darmesh. Shout out to Darmesh.
03:52HubSpot. Yeah. I just stole it from him.
03:54I was like, yeah. I'm just gonna say that from now on when people ask me what to do. That that was like, I can't beat that.
03:58That's super good. But he was saying, like, okay. Great.
04:00In software, you wanna go learn development because it's the it's a product based business as closest to value creation. Yeah.
04:06If you're in home service, it's more about less demand gen, but it's about, like, leading, like, blue collar techs and Yep.
04:15You know, people who can be tougher to manage or tougher to recruit Yep. Or even being bilingual, let's say, you have a cleaning business. There go.
04:20Yeah. People are, like, let's say, Spanish. In the education industry, a lot of it is marketing and sales.
04:26Yep. You know? And so whatever that is, it's like, as a young person, I wanna learn the skill that's closest to value creation.
04:33And then from there, you can start your own consulting business or start another business in that niche and whatever. I'm curious if you would agree with that or Yeah. 100%.
04:40Yeah. I like I like the idea of keeping it to whatever the core competency that actually is closest to the revenue engine. You know I mean?
04:45Value creation. Yeah. Value creation.
04:47Yeah. I like that a lot. Because, I mean,
Cole Gordon
04:49you can tangentially be close enough to, like like, when I started with with Cody, I was the intern.
04:55Right? But I was the intern for Cody who ran the company. And so, like, that was close enough to be able to participate in a little bit of everything.
05:03Yeah. Right? Because naturally, he was close to value creation.
05:07Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
05:08And so, like, that that ended up working out great. Whereas if you're like, well, I'm in this really cool startup, and I'm in HR. It's like, well, if you're trying to you know, like, if you're in HR for engineering, that's a trickier path than maybe if you're in operations.
05:19You know what I mean? For that same company. Yep.
Josiah Grimes
05:22I mean, it depends on the company. If you're trying to start a recruiting firm, then Yeah. Then going in and learning how to recruit and being an HR might be fantastic.
05:29But Well, I had no idea. I had no knew nothing about recruiting. We just we just learned it as we went, but I knew marketing and sales, and I knew stuff about sales teams, which you help people build.
05:39Yeah. So that's what helps. So okay.
05:40Let's say we're at a million. Somebody's figured out, you know, an acquisition system, how to generate leads, how to sell leads, and Yep. Essentially, you know, have product market fit.
05:49And model I would say is, like, getting to a mill. Yep. So what do you think about one to 10?
05:54Once they have those three things in place Yep. What's one to 10? One to 10 alright.
05:58So one to 10 is really fun. It depends on the business and, like, what your fulfillment mechanism is because you're
Cole Gordon
06:04at one to 10, you're probably figuring out where you stair step. And if you're, like, what marketing like, you don't need to expand your marketing channels. So that's one.
06:10Two, you might need to just increase the amount of content you generate for that same marketing. Like, a lot of people get stuck because they're generating the same amount of content for their marketing, and then their marketing, like, costs stair step. And so, like, you know, when before they scale, they go from, like, one to 5,000,000 and, like, the economics still work, but then five to 10, it just breaks down.
06:27Yeah. Right? And that's either because their fulfillment sucks.
06:30So, like, their fulfillment didn't scale. Like, you need to build the full model, right, where it's like, okay. This is how many people I need to hire on the fulfillment side for all for a 100 new people I bring in on the front or a 100 new clients over here or two new clients.
06:40I need this on the back end to service that. And so you need to scale the model, you know, in totality altogether. But part of that is, you know, whatever's generating your business, which is generally marketing, there's probably some content equation.
06:53And a lot of people get stuck because they they don't make more content. And they're like, oh, well, that marketing channel's capped. It's like, well, you know, maybe you just need to create maybe you need a more dynamic content team that can drive that can, you know, bring in more eyeballs for the right costs.
07:07Right. And then, you know, that I think that generally can take you to 10,000,000.
07:12With that, I mean, you're also building out like, this is also the freaking hardest part Yeah. Of the whole gig because at this point, you've hired some people in that were sub 1,000,000.
07:20You're starting to get to where you can almost pay for good salaries and experienced talent. But a lot of the people that you're hiring, you're hiring for, like, high potential.
07:28Right? So, like, they they should be able to solve really complex problems, but they probably haven't solved those specific problems before. Yeah.
07:35If you're hiring younger because younger people tend to be a little like, you can sometimes get high potential, not a lot of experience, and in the right price range. If you're, you know, business doing a million to 5,000,000 Mhmm.
07:46Okay. Well, then you've got management problems. Right?
07:48Like, because they they aren't necessarily professionalized, and they don't necessarily have that level of professional maturity in a workplace to know, like, what back channeling even is. Right?
07:57Or that the import the difference between maybe structure and bureaucracy. Right?
08:02Because you'll start to apply one to 10,000,000, you're gonna start to apply structure, which basically limits limits how everyone can talk to each other.
08:10Right? When you're, like, five people, you guys can all just sit around a table and everyone hears everything all the time.
08:15Right? So it's like one to everyone. Like, that's your one way to communicate.
08:18When you go to 30 people, right, well, now information can find its way through the organization a bunch of different ways. And a lot of what you're doing from, like, one to five million, especially, is defining roles, building out structure around who does what, when they do it, how it's communicated.
08:33And so then you're so as you're doing that, which allows you to have playbooks that you can continue to operate, if someone quits, you don't have to freak out and fill that hole. Right? Like, you wanna build out onboarding training all that from one to, you know, let's say $10,000,000.
08:47But you're also having to train up, you know, these younger people in your org on professional maturity and them understanding, like, this is structure. It's good for us.
08:56Bureaucracy makes makes you less efficient. It's rules that make you less efficient. Structure is rules that make you more efficient.
09:02Right? And so you're applying structure. You're probably getting pushback from your initial team.
09:06So you're managing through that. You have to build out all the structure, which is good. So, like, I and and at this point, most of your you know, you're just getting to the place where you can hire people that can initially come in, have the experience to take real work, meaningful work off your plate.
09:20So, basically, what I'm saying is that
Josiah Grimes
09:23section of business is really freaking hard. Hey. If the way you sell your product or service is through phone sales, you need to stop using booking systems like OneSub, Calendly, iClose, and other booking systems that aren't designed specifically for a phone sales approach or a phone sales team.
09:36So we at SalesKick just launched a new calendar and booking system that'll decrease your cost per booked call because it's conversion rate optimized specifically for call funnels, whereas most other calendar systems are meant for corporate all purpose booking, and it'll increase your show rates.
09:50So we've had clients see 30 to a 100% increases in their show rate because our calendar system is specifically designed for call funnels and other funnels that are high volume sales call booking funnels. And the software does so much more. It's really the only product designed specifically for sales teams with inbound booking systems.
10:06So if you're interested, go to saleskick.com. Check it out. Now back to the video.
10:10We'll talk about the bureaucracy versus structure.
10:15And bureaucracy makes you less efficient. Structure makes you more efficient. Yep.
10:18Yeah. Talk about that. I've actually never heard that.
10:20Okay. Yeah. So,
Cole Gordon
10:22like, um, I think I think this is super important, and it's like a a main pushback you're gonna get from that initial team going to the next stage. And you as an entrepreneur, you need to know that there's a difference between those two. Uh-huh.
10:33Right? Like, when you say everyone's like, let's say you set core hours of working hours. Like, before, everyone just kinda worked all the time.
10:40But now you're, like, setting core hours where everyone's gotta be here from ten to three so that we can communicate. And now you're setting up, like, you know, designated stand up meetings every morning. Right.
10:49And you've got different Slack channels, and people have to put in a freaking IT request.
Josiah Grimes
10:53Like, they can't just walk over to the IT guy. Yeah. And just everybody dumps on one person.
10:57Yeah. Right. We had this one lady.
10:59She about blew her brains out. She was my first ops person. Yeah.
11:03And it there was a time where, like, if you had any ops request, it was just like, everybody just goes to this one person. Despends on this one person. And funny story, like I mean, she's a nice person.
11:15And, honestly, I just wasn't a good leader back then. But it was one of those things where I didn't put in the right structure. Mhmm.
11:20So then they were like, can I just be COO? And I was like, yeah.
11:23Titles don't mean anything. You're COO now. And then it was, oh, well, COOs make this on whatever Yeah.
11:28Dude, instantly goes to that route. So I need a and it was literally like this person was making, like, $4 a month, and they're like, well, I need to be looking at, like, 3 to 400,000 a year. I'm like, yeah.
11:39It's not gonna happen. Yeah. I don't He's like, we need to either reconcile your position or find a way to part ways peacefully.
11:45Yeah. Yeah. But, anyways, I know don't if you've ever been through that mistake.
11:48You're 100%. You're you're a really great operator. But No, dude.
11:50I've definitely made that mistake. We had so
Cole Gordon
11:52much fun. Also, what's it called?
11:55Yeah. No. We had a really talented I mean, he's really talented.
11:58He was on the the tech team. I I love this guy still, dude. Yeah.
12:01Like, he might even be watching this. I don't know. He's he's amazing guy.
12:05Lives in Florida, runs an ad agency. Just saying. But, yeah, I know.
12:09Like, we same sort of thing. Like, you can award with title or with comp. And a lot of times when you have a small organization, you're like, I can't pay them more.
12:15You pay them with title. I'm gonna pay them with title. Bad bad choice.
12:18Bad choice most of the time. Right? If your company's growing, it's a terrible decision.
12:23You know what I mean? And we've kinda talked about, like, you know, if you're, like, an if you're 10 people, you don't have a COO. You might have an ops manager.
12:31Right? Then maybe a director of operations. Right?
12:34But, like, you climb the anyhow, with that, we gave him a CTO title. Kath thought it was gonna be a great idea. And we had the same exact conversation.
12:42Oh, yeah. It was like, I think he might have been making, like, maybe $65,000, $60.
12:48And it was like, I ran the comps on Glassdoor. The slider says, you know, and I should be making $2.25 to $2.75 on the low end.
12:56Yeah. Like, god. Like, dang it, dude.
12:59Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
13:00I one maybe tiny caveat there is, like, a lot of times you can help those people by saying, hey. Go look at the actual job.
13:08You know, like, go look at the actual job listings and the requirements. And let's compare that to your scorecard. Yeah.
13:12And so it's like you're getting the title and you or when you give them the title being crisp and super clear about it upfront. Yeah. Like, if you can do that, it saves you from the pain on the back end and then also helping them understand, like, the difference between like, they're using Glassdoor CTO slider.
13:27Right? And you should take them to, like, go look at LinkedIn, and let's look at the actual job.
13:32Like, what are the jobs here in your low like, whatever local area? And look at the requirements. It's, like, fifteen years of management experience, PhD, or in, you know, these four things.
13:43And you're like, you have two years of, you know, community college. So it's like
Josiah Grimes
13:47Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, especially it's these can titles like CTO, COO, stuff like that because they probably found something on PayScale or Glassdoor or whatever.
13:57Yeah. But that company might have had 250 people.
14:00So it's like, yeah, the CTO of a company at the 250%
Cole Gordon
14:04scale is way different than our company of 10 people. Yeah. Or just managing the data at, like, a $100,000,000 revenue business.
14:11Yeah. I mean, like, the data around that versus the data that you like, that needs to at the end and the technical infrastructure that needs to be managed at, you know, for, like, CTO at, like, $3,000,000.
Josiah Grimes
14:21Yep. So So I still wanna stay in this 1 to 10,000,000 range and then do a sidebar about hiring. And I want you to tell me about IQ.
Cole Gordon
14:30Oh, This is like this is your your best take.
14:35This best takes. Thanks, bro. I'm sure I think I probably just copied this from someone else, frankly, but it's been very useful for us.
14:41Right? Yeah. Like, you know, the the question is like, hey.
14:44What's the what's the number one indicator for success in the workplace?
14:49Right? And, like, I don't know, dude. I I wanted to answer HardWork.
14:53Like, that's Right. Like, that's the correct answer. Know mean?
14:55Like, it's your Integrity. Integrity. Yeah.
14:57Okay, baby. Like, integrity, passion, hard work, grit, those are all great answers.
15:03Yeah. Like, the scientific answer or the probably will say, you know, correct answer is actually IQ, which sucks.
15:11I mean We're we're canceled. Yeah, dude. It's like, I know it's like Officially canceled.
15:15Does luckily, it doesn't always apply to entrepreneurs. Praise god. K.
15:18That's how I that's how we snuck in. Okay? Yeah.
15:20It's IQ. So it's like if you if you could be either born in the ninety fifth percentile for wealth or ninety fifth percentile for IQ, you should choose IQ because by the time you're 40, you're, like, just as wealthy and you're still smart. Yep.
15:31Right? And so and really, IQ is your, you know, ability to solve nuanced problems. And so, like, a lot of people in workplaces, it's like, this guy just doesn't listen or he doesn't try.
15:40And the reality is it's like, no. Like, his ability to solve problems is less than yours.
15:47Right? Like, if you have a team if you've got a team of, you know, like, 12 people, you'll notice that they tend to gravitate towards some one or two people on that team to ask all the questions. Yep.
15:56Those are probably either you're way more experienced, so they've got crystallized IQ, or they've got, you know, fluid IQ and they can just naturally solve problems. Right? And those are the people you should make managers.
16:06Yeah. Right? Because they can solve problems.
16:09But yeah. So So, like, sorting, when you are hiring, you can't give them an IQ test.
16:15But you can basically break it down and get something very close from, like, a cognitive assessment. Yeah. Which is how how do you assess it?
16:22Yeah. From, like, from an assessment perspective, you got IQ kind of breaks into three main categories. Right?
16:27Which is, like, verbal, spatial. Well, I guess, I mean, I'll talk to each one of them individually, but, like, verbal is, you know, if you're sitting with a person and you're having a conversation, you can hear verbal IQ by the syntax, the vocabulary they use.
16:42Uh-huh. And that's gonna dictate what they can understand when you say it. Right?
16:46Like, if you give them instruction if you give someone on your team instructions and they just got it, like, they knew what the project was, okay, that's probably high verbal IQ or or more, like, likely to have higher verbal IQ. Yep.
16:56Whereas, you know, the person that you're like, I explained it to them and they brought me something totally different that could be a verbal IQ issue. Right? Or if they I mean, writing is an easy way to tell.
17:05You know what I mean? Just in general. Like, if you have them write a little five paragraph essay or something.
17:09Right? Well, you know what we do that's super interesting is when somebody wants to propose an initiative or something new Mhmm. We have them write a memo.
17:17Yeah. Yeah. I like this is like the typical Jeff Bezos.
17:20I think it's Bezos. This also the difference between, like, when you're plus 10,000,000.
Josiah Grimes
17:24Right? Like, all of a sudden, you have to push things to writing because you need to process around the conversation Yeah. Not just verbally.
17:30Anyhow, it's a but yeah. So and I and I think that's from Bezos, especially because then the the the conversation about the new initiative, everybody reads the memos before, and then everybody's on the same page, and then you just, like, discuss what actually matters. Right?
17:41But the interesting thing about it is when people write a memo number one, if it's not that important, they won't write a memo. Yeah.
17:48Number two is a lot of times they'll write the memo and then they themselves will see, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, and then they just stop writing the memo. Number three could be they write the memo and then you're like, oh, I mean, I haven't really had this on anybody on my team. But, you know, you could write a memo and then it's like, what is this?
18:06Yeah. You know, like, because it's it's a reflection of their thinking. Yes.
18:09Number four is you write the memo they write the memo and you're like, damn. This is really good. Yeah.
18:13Right? Like, this is really insightful. Yeah.
18:15It's a reflection of their thinking. That's Yes. And you wanna know how people think.
18:18You want the in business,
Cole Gordon
18:20not in art, but in business, right, some of the best thinkers are structured thinkers. Right? So do they put things in categories?
18:27Do they put things in pairs? Do they use a framework the way they think about things to solve problems? Right?
18:32And, obviously, you can see that if they write something, you're gonna see a framework. Right? It's gonna start with, like, the agenda.
18:37I mean, like, the bullet points. Structured thinkers win in business. Yeah.
18:41And so if you can if you get an like, if you're having a conversation with them and they're using fancy words, right, like, okay, that's likely higher verbal IQ. If you give them a problem to solve and they use a framework or a structure to solve it, that's likely also higher IQ.
Josiah Grimes
18:56So just like things like Yeah. Like that that you can use to kinda triangulate in on. So so I would imagine that because I'm trying to, like, package this in a way people can implement it in their business.
19:05I'm imagining that in the hiring process, you could, let's say, give somebody a task. Mhmm.
19:10And then, obviously, their ability because we all have those people in our organization where it's like, yeah. If I just tell it to this person, I don't have to explain it twice. Like, I don't have to write it down.
19:18Yeah. You know, they just They get it. Yeah.
19:20You know, those are high IQ type of people. They have I call it, like, high processing power, which is probably my political correct way of saying it. You know?
19:27Yeah. But they have that. So in the hiring process, you could assign them a task.
19:29Mhmm. One thing that I should probably do, I don't do this, but after you were saying it, is even maybe have them read my, you know, company memo, which, like, I wrote a 34 page.
19:40Like, you talk about a freaking memo and Dang it. Writing it. I wrote, like, a 35 page, like, what's the plan this year?
19:47What was the thinking behind all the decisions? What was the thinking behind all the decisions last year? What have we learned?
19:52What's, you know, coming up in five years? Have them read that and then write a memo to the memo,
Cole Gordon
19:57you know, challenging into the idea There I like or whatever. Anything that I could get I guess I could get them in in writing Yeah. I suppose.
20:03Writing and see Demonstrate your thinking in writing. Yes. To see what that would be.
20:07Any other ways you could test for this stuff in So I mean interview process. So it's like it's okay. The three are, you know, verbal, spatial, and memory.
20:14And so, like, what I like to do is train something at the beginning, you know, like, might whiteboard something out. I'm gonna come back and have them train it to me at the end of interview. Okay.
20:21I I think that, you know, like, as I'm in interacting with them, hearing them talk, I'm gonna gain just, an understanding of syntax, vocabulary, whatnot.
20:30That's an indicator. And then, like, you can use tools, like, we use Brick, like, b r y q, and they have a cognitive score in there as well.
20:40And so, like, you can use tools like that. I feel like those are very useful. Because I think the interview you wanna focus on, get them as close to actually performing their job as possible.
20:48Right? Like, assurance that they're gonna do the job. Like, on one side, if I say, like, are you a good media buyer?
20:53And they say, yes. I know nothing more. Like, I gained I gained freaking zero.
20:56What were they gonna say? No? Yeah.
20:57Like, what were they gonna say? No? It's like, I gained zero.
20:59You know what mean? Whereas if I have them buy media against one of my accounts for a week, it's like, okay. I know if they're good or not.
21:05You know I mean? Like, that's this is doing the job, and this is totally useless. So I think in the interview, you wanna get them as close to actually doing the job as possible and and be looking for the words they're using, they're thinking, and then memory.
21:17Right? Like, what I talked to them about in the first interview, did they were they able to draw back to that in the second interview? Right?
21:23Those are all good components. Because the other thing is, like, you can explain something to someone. They have to understand it.
21:28That's verbal. Mhmm. Two, after they understand it, they have to remember it.
21:31Store it. Yeah. Store it.
21:32Three, and then or two, and then three is, like, where did they store it? What did they connect it to? Right?
21:38When do they reference that information? You can know a lot of things and remember a lot of things, but if you don't reference them in the appropriate times,
Josiah Grimes
21:44right, to solve the right types of or to solve the particular problem at hand, then it's useless information. Right? And so you kinda wanna Yeah.
21:51Well, I will say over time and I and it's interesting you say this because I've gradually just with my own interviews over time, even for sales guys. Because what we do is we can work with a business that might be, you know, just starting off all the way to, like we have sometimes I mean, it's rare, but, like, we'll have sales calls, you know, at maybe, like, one every other month with a billion or multibillion dollar company.
22:13Yeah. And then, also, it can be all sorts of different industries. And so you have to have a high business acumen and, like, problem solving ability Yep.
22:20Because I can't, like I can train you on sales. Yeah. I can't necessarily train you on, like, how to find the constraint in a billion dollar company sales process versus a $100,000,000 company versus a company doing 20 k a month.
22:33Yeah. And then also versus solar versus this industry versus that industry. So it's interesting.
22:38One of my hires recently that worked out really well, he had, like, no experience. I just was like, fuck. This guy's so smart.
22:45You know? I just was like, this guy's really smart. And I knew from his previous position, I was like, man, like, that was more complex than this, and he learned it.
22:55Yep. So I was like, I think he has a high rate of So I he didn't really fall into my normal criteria of a sales guy. Yeah.
23:01But I hired him and he was was great. He's one Yeah. Of our best
Cole Gordon
23:04I mean, I don't know how, you know, I don't know, kosher some of this this is. But, like, if you look at people's, like, where they're at in their life and when their motivations are gonna be highest, that's one.
23:13And then two, like, when they are most driven to solve problems. And if they have if they're in that portion of their life, you know what I mean, which is different portions for different people, you what mean? You gotta kinda dig that out and figure out, do they have a natural motivation now?
23:25Like, most young guys coming out of college or whatever that are, like, just getting started, they're gonna be pretty high motivate highly motivated. Right? Yeah.
23:32You also see a lot of people, like, you know, they just went through a big life event. You know what I mean? And now they're really motivated.
23:38Right? Yep. And so I think that you can if you can catch on to that with also high cognitive ability, like, they're gonna be super driven, high cog, that person's gonna is gonna be, you know, rocket ship for Yeah.
23:48And you also think with the life events thing because I've noticed in some roles,
Josiah Grimes
23:52we do want people who are, like, they're trying to push to, like, whatever their definition of career greatness is for them. Right?
23:59Yep. In other roles, it's better for us sometimes in in certain roles to hire for more of the stability.
24:06Like Yes. Like, there's a specific role I'm thinking about where I know if they're like, yeah. I used to be doing this and trying to achieve these things or running my own business, but now, like, I have two kids at home and Yeah.
24:16You know, we just bought a house and this and that, and, like, I'm looking for something, like, secure. Yep. Like, that's almost better for, like, this role over here.
24:23Totally. Do you guys think the same way about that? 100%.
24:25Yeah. Like, I mean, bang on, dude. So, like, it's
Cole Gordon
24:28okay. If you're if you're a young person watching this and you're like, why do I work for all these idiots? I'm smarter than all of them.
24:33Right? It's like, alright. Check it out.
24:35It's like there's two things that if if you own the company, you're thinking about two things, not you're thinking about skill. Like, they have to be able to do the job and do it well, but then you're thinking about stability. Yeah.
24:44Because you've had the experience where one of your sales directors tried tried to freaking unionize your sales team. Yeah.
24:50Bullcrap. Right? Like, you've had the experience where, you know, someone that was absolutely key leveraged the crap out of you and said, like, I'm gonna bounce, you know, because, like, they weren't they were skilled, but they weren't stable.
25:01Right? And so, like, when you're looking for hot like, leaders in a hierarchy, it's like, okay, if you're one individual sales rep and you have a bad day, okay, maybe you impact a couple clients.
25:11If you're a sales manager and you have a bad day, right, like, say something cynical, like, something unprofessional, immature, you're unstable in some way. You disrupt okay.
25:20Well, all 12 of your sales reps, right, that that sales manager disrupts. If you're a sales director, you disrupt your four managers and all of their teams.
25:29Right? It's like as you climb the hierarchy, the risk profile like, you need to be skilled, but the risk profile of the company is almost worse if you're skilled but not stable.
25:38I'd rather you'd almost not totally, but you'd almost rather have someone stable with no skills.
25:45Right? Yeah. And so, like, because that's a that's a more valuable thing to the company, like loyalty, stability, consistency, maturity, professionalism.
25:55Like, that's those are the type of people like, I get to choose who's reporting to me, like, I want them to be skilled, but I want all those other things. Yeah. Like, I don't want the the person that I'm like, what happened?
26:04You know, like and now I gotta go try to, you know, fix this whole portion of the organization. Right. And that's because too if, like, the man let's say your director who has two managers or something under them and then let's say 24 people Mhmm.
26:14If they are unstable or emotional
Josiah Grimes
26:17emotional is probably Emotional is a good word. Is a good word for people to, like, grasp this. Yeah.
26:21And they come off of an executive meeting and they're fucking pissed at you because you, you know, decline their idea or, like, you're coming off of a one on one and they didn't do as well in their performance review as they thought they were gonna do. And they're not gonna get a pay raise.
26:35And then they say something about, like, oh, well, this fucking company, you know, they don't like to pay anybody. Yeah. You got, like now that liability is 24 x Exactly.
26:42Opposed to just the salesperson doing it. So Exactly. You have to have and I and I think about a lot of our managers too.
26:47I'm like, they're remarkably you know, I I never thought about it this way until I heard you say it, but they're remarkably, like, stable people. Yeah.
26:54You know? They're like, they can handle the ups and downs and the stress. Like, they're not freaking out.
26:58Yeah. And I think that's, like, when you scale like, the reason why a lot of entrepreneurs sabotage
Cole Gordon
27:04like, they might have a company that could scale, but they kinda either sabotage themselves or, like, this sucks or I don't like managing people. You see a you see a chunk of people that built a strong company, and they're, like, realize, I just don't wanna manage anyone. That's a lot of people.
27:14It's a lot of people. Yeah. And a lot of times, it's because they had skilled people, but not stable people in their org.
27:19And so, like, they had no solid footing. You know what mean? Like, to no one to rely on in their com in in their org.
27:25So to them, everything was always fluid and a pain in the butt and then, like, oh my gosh. Some of that, though, too is, like, some of those people have their own emotional instability
Josiah Grimes
27:35that they cascade into the org. Well, I would say that is at least 50%. At least at least percent.
27:39Some of the people I know. Yeah. Cool.
27:42What was next? Oh, yes. I wanted to ask about so IQ, any other personality or hiring tips, hacks, whatever
Cole Gordon
27:50that you know of? Because this is this is your zone of genius. Well, thank you, dude.
27:52I mean, the obviously, you know, it's like, if you're lining them up, it's IQ, trait conscientiousness, which is proclivity to work hard, like natural drive. Mhmm.
28:01So, like, if like, they can't but go do something on Saturday. Yeah. I mean, if you're like, what did you do on Saturday?
28:06Like, I just relax, watch TV. I'm like, that's cool. Like, but that's prob that's not your killer.
28:11You know? Like, that's not the person that has to be doing something. That's gonna be excited about the project that takes all weekend, but it's worth it.
28:17Yeah. Mean, it's like, we accomplished something super cool. We worked so hard when we accomplished something super cool.
28:21Right? Like, you want those types of people. And so, like, when was the last time you took a, you know, a work text outside of work?
28:27Right? Like, what was that about? Like, try to figure out, do they naturally like and enjoy working?
28:33Are they wanting to be on all the time? Right? Like, that's a proclivity to work hard, trade consciousness, That drives success.
28:39Right? That really is your grit. That's the second thing.
28:41You know, what is it? IQ is, like, 24 to 35% of the variance in performance. And then the next one, which is this trade consciousness, like, proclivity to work hard is something like, you know, somewhere between 920%
Josiah Grimes
28:53or something. So work hard's got a little bit. Work hard.
28:55We got 10% there. We're showing up. We got 10%.
28:57We're on the board. Also, outside of that, what else is important?
Cole Gordon
29:00Then I then I flip to, like, culture fit, dude. So, like, I wanna know because I wanna gauge for stability. Like, now I know they're smart.
29:06Right? Now I know they're smart, that they wanna work hard. I wanna gauge for stability.
29:10Right? And, obviously, some of these positions I'm looking for, like, crystallized experience.
29:15Like, they have the know how already, but but, like, are they a culture fit? And so then it's asking questions that aren't like, you gotta be a little bit smarter.
29:24Dude, we talk about you gotta be a little bit smarter than whoever you try to be a little bit smarter than whoever you're interviewing, and you should be able to do that because you can think about your questions forever, and they just have to answer them on spot. Right?
29:36So, like, if you're gonna ask a culture, like, a question, ask a question, like like, one question I like asking is, like, you know, who's your favorite person you've ever worked for? And then why? And I try to get, like, the exact story on why.
29:47And I ask them a counter question. Like, who's your least favorite person you ever worked for? And then they're like, oh, you know, Tiffany because she was you know, she didn't believe in me or whatever.
29:55Oh, like, when did you tell me the story. Like, when did you, like, realize that Tiffany didn't believe in you? And, you know, they're like, well, I had this report, and it was a really good idea.
30:05You know what I mean? And I was just out of college, and it was it like, a really good idea. And so I went, and I put it on her desk.
30:10I was like, this is a report. I want you to read. Think it's a really good idea.
30:13And she was like and she was, like, really happy. She was like, okay. Awesome.
30:16Thanks. You know, like, like, we can you know, I'll totally do this, but then she just never came back to me. And I knew it was because she just thought I was too young, and so she didn't respect my ideas.
30:25And I'm like, okay. So what you did was you took she didn't get back to you about the report. That's something that happened, and what you made that mean was that she didn't respect like, you made that mean your insecurity, which is that you're young.
30:35Right? I was like, okay. That one's not terrible if now you're older and you don't have that same insecurity.
30:40You probably won't read it that way. But I can guarantee you, I, as a boss, am gonna accidentally forget some of your reports. There you go.
30:46Some of your good ideas, I'm not gonna probably respond to an accident. Right? Yeah.
30:50And so, like, it gives you I get you get to kinda step outside and get a separate read on how they think. Yeah. Or if they're like, oh, this person, you know, is, like, was always know, you she was super negative all the time, and she did blah blah blah.
31:02I'm like, oh, like, when did you experience that? Like, tell me. I was like, well, shoot.
31:05I was kiss up to the boss and always do blah blah. Like, you want the you want the specific example, and then you wanna see if the specific example actually would mean what they're making it mean.
31:16Right? And then if those are too far off, you can't manage that person well. So, like, stuff like that, like, that I use that as, like, a culture fit indicator for us.
31:23But you wanna come up with clever questions that give you that you know, a way to triangulate
Josiah Grimes
31:28how they might actually be. Yeah. And let me know if I'm on the right track because this is what I do, is I think about the skills that I wanna hire for.
31:35And not just skills, but also, like you said, like, traits, like work ethic Yep. You know, IQ, whatever. And then I try to ask questions, but the way I make them answer, the phrase is, tell me about a specific story when.
31:48Yeah. There you go. And what I try to do is get away from because I'll be like, you know, the classic is, tell me about a specific story where you had to give a Herculean sales effort to get this deal across the line.
32:00Like, was a crazy deal. You had to go above and beyond. Tell me about a story like that.
32:05Like, I wanna know everything about it, you know, end to end, like, what happened? Yeah. So you end with what happened.
32:10And what's interesting is a lot of times, they'll be like, well, you know, generally sometimes they'll even say generally or they'll say, well, when I'm really trying to get a deal across a line and then just talk in generalities. Yeah. Totally.
32:21And I'm like, woah. Woah. Woah.
32:22I wanna know a specific story. Big one. Yeah.
32:24Because, like, the one I always would tell is, like, this one where I had these, like, three sisters on the phone with this breastfeeding offer, and then they started crying, and I started crying. And all of a sudden, their mom was on the phone. I was talking to their mom.
32:35I had to sell their mom, and it was like I it was just a crazy story. But, anyways, like, any good salesperson has that, like, war story.
32:44Yeah. You know, like, you had a It's not a general. It's just simple You get the wife on the phone, and then all of a sudden, you know, the wife's like bitching you out and then she's she's bitching him out.
32:55This is a real story I had when I sold real estate agents. She was bitching me out and then turns and starts bitching the guy out for being on the call. And I remember I was actually a noob back in these days, and this was back when like, we were able through RingCentral's you know, we were able to essentially somebody could listen in as the call was going on.
33:17Yeah. So, like, my manager was giving me these, like, slacks and things to say. Whisper things legit turned it around.
33:23It was nuts. That's awesome too. But you see how it's like a specific story.
33:26Yes. You know? So
Cole Gordon
33:28Yeah. That that's kinda what you're going for there. Super good.
33:30Yeah. And that that that's like akin to, you know, kinda like Elon's saying, right, which is, like, you know, if they actually did it, then they should know the details. Like, if they were a big part of the win Yes.
33:38They should know the actual details. Because on their resume, you can say, was a part of insert thing company achieved that you had no real part of. Yeah.
33:45No real part of. Yeah.
Josiah Grimes
33:47Was aligned with us getting the company to $30,000,000 a year front end revenue, and it's like, you were like an ops person. Yeah.
33:54Like, how did you do that? You know? But you didn't even contribute with that at all.
33:56Exactly. Before we go to 20 to 30 mil, any other, like, good Zinger interview questions you really like?
Cole Gordon
34:03Oh, dude. I think that good Zinger interview questions mean, one I ask is, like, where do you get your moral compass or code from? Like Oh, wow.
34:09That's good. I like that just because I wanna understand like, I wanna understand what they ground themselves to because that's what I'll be able to ground them to.
34:15You know I mean? One. And then also that's the paradigm that they think about.
34:18Is this moral or not? And so I feel like that's helpful. You know, good answers there could be, one, either their faith or it could be, like, my parents.
34:25Right? And then I wanna know, like, you know, what are, like, what are some of the tenants of that moral code, moral compass that they think about? What I don't like to hear is, like, you know, like, oh, I you know, it's just like I feel I'm like, I don't know.
34:35Like, feel is bad. Don't start with feel. You know I mean?
34:38But, like, well, I think I just, you know, know what's right and what's wrong. Or, like, I just feel that, you know, like, you know, like, I'll I'll know if it's a good thing or not, you know, like or something like that. Like, that's obviously a weaker answer for me, but, like, that's helpful.
34:50It's insightful. I'm sure I think the biggest thing is, like, get instead of asking a tremendous amount of questions, get them to do the job.
34:56You know what mean? I agree. Get them to do the job.
34:58That's, like, how get them to do the job is really how you figure out Show their work and show their thinking. Yeah. Show their work and show your thinking.
35:04That's good. That's good. Okay.
35:06So going from 10 to 20 to 30,
Josiah Grimes
35:09what do you think are the keys there? And now since, you know, I know in Astro and sub two, you guys were, like, 10 just overnight. But now this is part of the phase where you guys even had to grind a little bit Totally.
35:18To get there. Right? So even for you guys, what was kind of the big keys and big differentiators?
Cole Gordon
35:24Data integrity, dude. Like, a big one I mean, obviously, you start to build out. So at this point, you can afford like, you know, you're paying people enough.
35:31You get to keep your your winners. You can pay enough to keep them. Praise god.
35:35They're taking off meaningful work. You're starting to find the right stable components so that your org feels pretty solid. Like, now it's okay.
35:43Now you gotta implement task management, but actually do it well, and you gotta implement, like, some data infrastructure because otherwise, everyone's got a different dashboard. You got, like, 18 freaking dashboards.
35:52They're like, alright. What did we sell last week? And finance is like, we sold this.
35:56And then sales is like, no. Like, we sold this. And marketing's like, I'm not tracking through.
36:00And you're like, what the fuck is going on? You're like We have one metric in our company. I'm not gonna say what it is, but if they're watching, they will know.
36:07We cannot come to a fucking consensus on this metric.
Josiah Grimes
36:11It's like and this is kind of important. And it's like we can never get it within 20 k. You know, it's like finance says one thing, back end says another thing, ops says one thing, and it's like, what is the fucking number?
36:22What's the number, dude? What is the number?
Cole Gordon
36:25We need to know what the number is, but go on. So that's I mean, so that's data integrity and and data infrastructure. Right?
36:30And structuring that correctly. And you need like, at that point, you need to invest in someone really smart and talented, like, that's got a PhD, right, that can come in and that's been there already, that's seen what it looks like, and can help you make the cake.
36:43Right? And so from a data integrity standpoint, I think so that's one of the biggest ones. Because, otherwise, you're gonna you're gonna be in pain all the time.
36:51Everyone's always gonna freaking complain. Dashboards are never gonna be quite right, and you're gonna try to drive based on intuition instead of data. Yeah.
36:58It's so true. That if you're driving on intuition, trying to go from 30 to 60 to a 100, like, at some point, you're gonna be making too many incorrect decisions. Well, you don't know what the constraint is.
37:09Yeah. So, you know, it's the interesting thing. When I do one on one calls with our boardroom clients, which are generally people from a 100 k to, let's say, 30 mil or 50,
Josiah Grimes
37:16I don't even have the call if they don't bring their data. And then sometimes we find out the action item is go fix your data.
37:23Yeah. Because, like, if you can't even bring the data, well, then we already know what the the constraint is the data. Yeah.
37:28So, like, by the very nature of you not be able to bring that, then we know what the problem is because if I mean, I can't tell you what to do if I don't see it. And if you don't have it, then how would you even know what to do? Yeah.
37:38And most of the time, it's like, the reason why they don't know what to do is because they don't have the data. Like, most of the time, if they've gotten to that level, they're actually pretty freaking not always. It's not always true.
37:45Because they don't know what data to look at or whatever, blah blah blah. But, like,
Cole Gordon
37:48yes. I think data is is hugely important. And then the next is, like, task management.
37:53So, like, it used to be a bunch of things that peep task management, onboarding, playbooks. Yeah. Right?
37:58Like, all of that really starts to come into play. Because now you're at a level where if someone like, you you need to get out of the level where if someone quits, you're like, shoot.
38:06That was an important person. We're we're six months. Like, we we moved back six months.
38:11You know? Yeah. Yeah.
38:12You gotta get away from that. And so and there's there's ways that you can control for that. But I think, like, good task management, good project management throughout where you've got bore like, okay.
38:21It's this type of it's this type of a project we're running. We've got a board for that. Yep.
38:25Right? And, like, track your tasks. Like, tasks should grow over time as your organization adopts the task management.
38:31Make sure all functions are in there. This gives you visibility as a leader to be able to say, what's marketing working on today? Right.
38:37Right? Like, you shouldn't have to call everyone to be like, are you working on every day? Instead, you should be able to see it in the system.
38:42So, like, you're you're moving into that level because you need visibility into what people are working on in your organization, and are they even working if it's a remote org? So that's one. Yeah.
38:50And then the other side is, like, good data. So now you can drive and you can see where people are too busy and where people aren't busy enough. And if you can like, so you if you got those two and then maybe you add to that, like, now you're starting to build out, a more maybe this is a little advanced.
39:04Maybe this is the next step. But now you're starting to build out more of, like, an advanced budgeting process.
39:08Right? Like, you need baked in budgeting is all about correct assumptions. It's like good books.
39:14You know I mean? Like, I think at this point right around this point, you probably, like, need to start getting your first audit, you know, done. Not for not for the IRS or anything goofy like that, but, like, your own internal like, you need an audit for yourself.
39:26Right? You're also gonna run into there's a bunch of reasons why you should get an audit.
39:30Like, it's gonna it's gonna show you a lot about your your finance and accounting team at this point. But, anyhow, those are just some there's plenty of stuff to do in that stage.
39:38Right? But most of it is
Josiah Grimes
39:41operationalizing your business. Yep. So then if we so you talked a lot about the ops.
39:45Is there anything growth wise as marketing sales you see from, let's say, 10 to 30?
Cole Gordon
39:51Yeah. So, I mean, you're probably launching so you're monitoring everything.
39:55Sometimes, you know, like, if you really hit you know, if you really struck gold and it's like your product is just continuing to scale, you know what I mean? And you're so you're hiring out content and hiring out or, like, people generating
Josiah Grimes
40:05front end marketing type stuff. Yeah. When you're saying content I mean, you're meaning organic content, I'm assuming, but also a lot of creative.
40:11A lot of creative. Is yeah. I I I I think you were calling that content.
40:14Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
40:15Altogether. Yeah. Okay.
40:16So it's probably better. Okay. Good clarification.
Cole Gordon
40:20Yeah. Right? So, like, you need you need ads, content, nurture assets, conversion assets.
40:27You're expanding all of those kind of in in tandem, right, as you're as you're continuing to grow. So I think, like, most of that scales, and you're gonna figure out where your depth is in your first product line. Right?
40:37Yeah. And now you've got probably an owned audience. Depends on how big that audience is.
40:41Yeah. Depends on if you're b to b or b to c. Right?
40:44But now you're looking at, like, okay. Can I can I sell them other things?
40:47You know mean? Like, can I get some expansion on this? Do I have any network effects or marketplace effects that I could build into?
40:54Right. Is there anything that I can attach to my current owned audience that increases LTV? Is there software I can sell them?
41:00Can I bring in affiliate partnerships? So, like, you're looking more at that. Like, can I can I have deeper penetration in the customers that I currently have?
41:08And so you're you're starting to build out those things. And then and, hopefully, as your core business just continues to scale, as you scale everything in tandem like a machine should.
41:17Right? So that's happening beautiful. If you're like, well, I wanna go after extra growth or you find that, hey.
41:22I hit a little bit of a plateau. You know what I mean? Like, the which, frankly, if it's a good product I mean, it depends on how niche the product is, but that's probably not a TAM issue.
41:33Right? Like, you probably have plenty of white space you could grow into and you have a right to win in. But, like, if you do and you start to slow down, like, okay.
41:40Well, maybe you can maybe there's another vertical that's adjacent that use a lot of the same mechanisms that you can roll out. Yeah. I mean, like, alongside it.
41:47And I think that you're doing all of that. But at the same time, sometimes people, like, in order to get from 30 to a 100, what they do, like, if you're in it's like, just turn on a totally different front end marketing,
Josiah Grimes
41:59you know, way to reach their customers. Yeah. Let's circle back to that in a second.
42:02Before we move on to 30 to a 100 Mhmm. So back to upside, a lot of people struggle with getting good c level managers.
42:12And when I say c level managers, I mean, because I you're more sophisticated with the titles than I am. I'm like, I kinda just call it whatever.
42:19But I mean, you knew content creative. So Yeah.
42:22Yeah. There we go. But a lot of people, especially at this level, I see they struggle with, okay, having a good sales director, head of sales or whatever you wanna title that, CMO, good, you know, whoever's leading over ops, good CFO for finance, etcetera, like that core leadership team.
42:39Yep. So what's been the biggest because this is another area I think you're really, really good. How do you find hire?
42:45How long does it take to train those people? What's realistic expectations there? Like, what's kind of your system for that?
42:51That's a good question, man. I think that
Cole Gordon
42:54at that point, you're hire like, if you're hiring a CFO, you're hiring for experience. Right. I mean, like, you need a pro that's got probably audit experience, hopefully has some experience with maybe a big five, maybe he's gone through a couple transactions, something like that.
43:05Yeah. Like, you're you're hiring for experience like, cognitive ability, right, obviously, but very heavily for Especially CFO because it's a it's a it's a role that even if I mean,
Josiah Grimes
43:17you know, there is differences per business. Mhmm. But largely, a good CFO should be able to drop in to almost any business.
43:24Unless it's, like, something like, you know, your business is a Brad Jacobs style crazy, like, m and a thing, and they did this other thing that was not that at all. I mean, there's there's differences. Yeah.
43:31But I would feel like whereas, like, a sales director, for instance, that can be, if your enterprise, very different than if you do more style, like, transactional sales like we do.
43:42Yeah. You know? Like, that's almost a totally different management and Yeah.
43:45Skill set type of thing. I don't know if you'd agree. Yeah.
43:47I think so. Okay. I mean and then one thing I don't know how
Cole Gordon
43:49this is in the weeds, but it's kinda how it's something I didn't know. You know, like, someone had to freaking explain this to me. But, like, when you're hiring so back on the CFO thing.
43:56But, like, when you're hiring a CFO, you've got accounting. Like, said, some people are focused more on accounting, which is what's happened in the past.
44:02Mhmm. And some people that have focused more on finance, which is what's happening in the future. Good stuff.
44:06FP and A. Right? And so you need you your CFO needs to have prowess in both of those areas.
44:12Like, you want them have to have done some forecasting, budgeting, finance, like that type of stuff, which is finance, forward looking, and have a very strong, you know, pedigree on the accounting side.
44:22Right? And so, like, you I don't know. So, like, there's little details like that.
44:26But your question around specifically find c so we we talked about CFO, but the other c levels. So, like, obviously, you're CFO. You're hiring for experience.
44:33What about, like, like, CMO? That's a tough one. Sales director, that's a tough one.
44:37CMO, honestly, I mean, so it this is very business specific at this point. You know I mean? And, like I mean, one one thing to look at is, like, people bear with me on this.
44:47Okay? Maybe alright.
44:49I'm I'm gonna throw it out there. We'll see how it goes. But, like, people peak in their you know?
44:53Okay. So, like, cognitive naturally, cognitive function tends to start declining somewhere between, like, fifty five and sixty or something like that. Right?
45:01There's kind of this turning point where your fluid intelligence declines, but your crystallized intelligence continues to advance. Right. Right?
45:06And so you tend to be the best executive with the most crystallized knowledge, like, ability to recognize patterns. So if you think about, like, an amateur chess player, they can recognize, like, whatever it is, like, I don't know, 600 patterns or something like that when they're playing chess.
45:21Yeah. Whereas, like, a master can like, has memorized 340,000 patterns or something ridiculous.
45:27Right? Uh-huh. And it's because they've seen it, so they've already been there.
45:29They know exactly how it could go. They can see all the nuances. Alright.
45:33That's why, like, you know, if you're 60 plus, you those are your, like, your bet some of your best board members. Right? Because they've seen a lot of stuff.
45:39Right. You know I mean? Like, they can give you really good experience, like, experience driven insights, crystallized knowledge, where you kinda have the and then, you know, your fluid intelligence is the highest when you're probably, like, in your twenties.
45:51Right. And, like and that's why you can pick up on a lot of things. Right?
45:54Well, you're probably the best executive somewhere between obviously, this is not freaking don't go higher off of this or whatever. And then Yeah. Just rule of thumb.
46:02But rule of thumb, like, your best executive is somewhere between, like, late thirties through fifth their fifties. You know I mean? Because they've got still a lot of fluid intelligence.
46:10Like, they haven't felt that decline, and they've got all this pattern recognition and ability to understand, you know, what's going on. Like, what you're looking for is, like, a combination of, like, entrepreneurial ability to invent and to go create new things, still solve Nuance problems, but then institutional understanding because they need to know what you're building towards.
46:27Like, you're not hiring a CMO so that they can keep your business at the same level. Right. You're hiring the CMO that knows what the business should look like at the next level so that they can take you there.
46:36Yep. And as far as hiring for those positions, like, generally I mean, if you're at let's say, at 30,000,000, you might have one talent act person, right, on your team, but you should go hire a recruiting firm for these specialized positions that know how to speak the language Yeah.
46:51That already have the relationships, already have the connections. Right? And they'll they'll bridge the gap.
46:57Because, like, you're gonna come in and not know anything. Like, when I was to hire my first, you know, CFO type person, I was like, I didn't know. I mean, I took some accounting and finance classes in college.
47:07Yeah. But, like, I didn't know like, I wouldn't have been able to hire that person. Yeah.
47:11And then the same thing is, like, what most entrepreneurs do when they hire them their CMO is they hire someone that's a good marketer but doesn't know anything about institutionalized structure or operationalized structure. So, like, they hire the person that's good for their business right now, but has no idea how to build in stable managers, right, and and manage an organization underneath them.
47:31They're just a good marketer. Mhmm. You know what mean?
47:33And so, like, a lot of people are like, this guy's wicked. He's an ace copywriter, and he's so freaking smart.
47:38Yeah. And, like, he's a CMO. And it's like, uh, does he know how to freaking build managers and directors?
Josiah Grimes
47:43Because that's his actual because there's, a workflow that goes along too. It's very it's very tough to have both of those in one position. If you're looking for a mastermind to take your business to 10,000,000 a year plus, then you wanna check out our 8 figure boarder mastermind.
47:54So after doing a 100,000,000 in total cash collected from my own companies, I've created a mastermind where I really pull back the curtain and show you exactly how I've done it. So I not only share with you what's working for us across marketing, sales, fulfillment, operations, finance for all of our different companies, at the same time, you can network with some of the top people in the industry and also listen to world class speakers like Patrick Bet David, Dean Graziosi, Neil Patel, Tom Baylou, and many, many others.
48:18So if you're interested, check out the link in the description and get more info. One thing that I've heard, I'm curious your thoughts on this, is it's it it like, what you said with the CFO, it's very tough if you are not a good CFO yourself.
48:30Right? Like, you took some accounting classes to know who it is. What do you think about like, the way I think about it is you just need to find one of your friends or something who has the CFO that you wish you had, and then you're like, okay.
48:41That's kinda like, talk to that person, get an idea. Okay. This is kinda what I want.
48:46And then also just see if you could just pay them to do a second interview I like that the candidate. Yeah. It's great.
48:51Yeah. Super great. That's good.
48:52I think one thing yeah. It's a great idea.
48:55Okay. And so 30 to a 100,
Cole Gordon
48:58what do you think and I'm I'm curious more again on you know, especially, like, in a single business like Sub two who was there. Right? Like, what were the big things in growth that helped to hit that level?
49:09Because that's a level that very few people in our industry have hit. Right? I see.
49:14I think the biggest thing that we had is we started to have really, this network effect on the back end where we received plus up just from referrals. You know mean? So, like, that really helped us.
49:24You know what And as the community expanded, we saw more and more referral motion, and so that boosts all of our marketing metrics and everything else. And so, like, I think that helped. And I think I mean, we're continuing to grow in sub two.
49:35You know mean? It's something we haven't we haven't hit a Even peaked. Yeah.
49:38You haven't hit your TAM yet, dude? No, dude. We have not even close.
49:41Maybe let's go. Do want me to start another business? Yeah, dude.
49:43So, like so I think that that we've got a lot of, you know, trajectory with it. But the biggest thing there is, like, building to the model. You know what mean?
49:50Like, we need more content, more creative, and we need to make sure that we don't fall off on fulfillment. You know I mean?
49:56And so one one thing that's really nice is, like, that, you know, sub two is built so that you make like, everyone on the back end interacts in the community aspect drives ROI for the members. Mhmm.
50:08And so as it gets bigger, it's one more of a moat, but it's also more benefit to everyone in the community. So, like, that that type of a business naturally spins up.
50:17You know what I mean? And, like, accelerates. So that's so in some ways, it's it depends on, you know, what type of business you're talking about.
50:24So in some ways, that's, like, an unfair Yeah. Well, what's interesting is I think in our industry,
Josiah Grimes
50:28you know, what you guys and Pace have done with sub two is really one of the only examples of I'm not saying you have, like, a network effect like Facebook. But Yeah.
50:38I would say that every additional member to the community makes the community more valuable, which is the definition of network effects Yeah. Which I'm not really seeing replicated anywhere else. You know?
50:46And I'm also curious. So working with Pace, like, he is a community beast.
50:51Yeah. Yeah. I've just never seen anybody like it.
50:54And in fact, like, he's so good to where I even told him and I don't think he wanted to at all, but I was like I was like, dude, if you ever ran for politics, like, you probably freaking win. Yeah. He's like, you're like I was like, because you know when he did that tour Yeah.
51:06And he was meeting all of everybody from his community, which in within himself is badass, I was like, the guy's going on campaign. The guy's going on a campaign.
51:13I'm like, man, maybe should I donate to this guy's I'm like, I'm not gonna donate to any politicians, but Pace Morby, I would donate. I would donate. Know?
51:20Bob, what what is the biggest lessons you've learned from him and just seeing how he's operating? One of you guys are such a good team. Thank you, dude.
51:26One of the things I think is incredible about Pace is, like, his care for every member, dude. Like, he cares so much Yeah.
Cole Gordon
51:33And and is always focused on the product. Right? Like, he's always focused on the this community aspect, building it in, and is relentless in his desire to help people.
51:45You know mean? So, like, the you know, like, I wanna help people.
51:49I wanna see people be successful. Do you think how much of that is, like,
Josiah Grimes
51:53something genetic with him verse because I'm the same way. Like, I wanna help people, but I have, like, a I get you know, I have, a energy bar that gets depleted.
52:03Right? Yeah. And it feels like his is just, like,
Cole Gordon
52:06just overflows
Josiah Grimes
52:07or something. I'm, like, curious how much of that you think is, like, learned versus just who he is.
52:13And if people aren't don't know who I mean, haven't, like, experienced it, it is truly remarkable what he does with community and how much, as he calls it, loves on people. You know?
52:21Yeah. Pace is awesome.
Cole Gordon
52:23I think that Pace is naturally very extroverted. And so I think that that aids him in a sense in the in the you know, because he likes to communicate and he gets energy from communicating. But I think the other thing too, though, is really, like, he's I mean, sure willpower, dude.
52:37Like, I think is the you know, like, sure willpower. Like, he will he will go go go go go go and do, you know, plow through walls to see people be successful.
52:46And I think that he's exceptional, you know, at it now and has been for a very long time, but he also, like, honed that.
52:55Like so I think he had a natural gifting to begin, but then he really worked on it and really honed it. You know what mean? And really, really built it up to be able to and just a natural ability to remember names and faces and and not just a natural ability, but then a discipline on top of that.
53:07Yeah. It's like if you compound natural talent and gifting with discipline and diligence, you get a phenomenal outcome. I think that that's, like, been you know, like, pace is hard is to see people do well, and so
Josiah Grimes
53:20it just yeah. Yeah. I'm curious.
53:23So to get to because I I've gotten well, between when I had three companies at once, runway wise, we got close at a certain point to in a 100 run rate, but it kind of all we kinda consolidated back down to one company before I woulda I was able to realize that from a yearly standpoint. How much, though, from getting to, let's say, 30 to a 100?
53:42Squeak up to, like, 99, then you're like, oh, dang. No. Well, I mean, you know, I probably told you the whole story, but we had three companies.
53:49One was a medical company that had, like, two sales companies. That was so much work, and the medical company was growing so fast that the b to c sales company we were kinda just like, ah, like, let's just let's take that. And this is what we really did.
54:01We were like, you know and b two c was tough, like, especially with, like, the whole k shaped economy. Like, if you're running a call funnel, the consumers who are buying Yeah. Number one, it's like, they were just not financially there.
54:12And then you're in this position of, like, should you even be selling these people? Like, you know you know you can help them, but you're like, he's like, I don't wanna wanna take anybody's last dollar. So we actually absorbed that whole company into the medical company and started another division within the medical company that hit 1,000,000 a month within sixty days.
54:29Wow. Right? The so then we so but so that was the strategic calculus, which brought us down to two.
54:34Because my thought my theory was, like, three was too hard, but I had done two for a while. Yeah. So was like, well, I guess I can do two.
54:40Yep. And then for different reasons, it's a long story. The I ended up leaving the medical company, and it's still around.
54:47But I just was like, I'm just gonna focus on the one company. So, anyways but, yeah, at the peak when I had all three, our best month was, like, 7,100,000, like, actual cash collected.
54:56Nice. Right? Not even revenue contracted, whatever.
54:58It's, like, actual cash. Nice. But then I came back down to 30 when I just went to one.
55:03You know? So I I forgot why we even got on that that tangent. But oh, yes.
55:07Because my question was my question was, how much do you think, let's say, 30 to 100 is, you know, the offer, the marketing, or something to do with acquisition Mhmm.
55:19Versus certain things with operations? And the reason I ask is, especially, you know, with a lot of the people I know and the industry and stuff, most people will gravitate towards, oh, it's just the offer.
55:30Yeah. Or, oh, it's just the marketing, which, I mean, I'm sure that's gotta be a part of it. But I'm curious what you think just from having actually done it and see.
55:37Well, I think, honestly, like, if you
Cole Gordon
55:41I think if you if your product and if you're diligent about maintaining the product quality and you went from zero to 30,000,000, you can go to a 100.
55:50You know mean? Like, that's bear with me on this. But, like, I think that that's pretty much fundamentally true, but you're gonna have a bunch of things that will absolutely break unless you build any infrastructure for them.
56:00So, like, our biggest thing wasn't, like, reinvent stuff to get like, once you're past 30, it's not go reinvent stuff at that point. It's really, like, is your infrastructure there? Is your data clean?
56:12Is your like, do you have good high level directors and talent that can build the organization from, like, a thoughtful, sophisticated way.
56:24Like, that really was the difference between driving between 30 to up to a 100. I think that you see a lot of entrepreneurs I mean, I've been this person. You see a lot of entrepreneurs that get to about 30, and then their toolbox is out.
56:35You know I mean? Like, they don't have the next they don't have the next tool kit. And so they're, like, trying to tinker around with, you know, like, these little bear with me on this.
56:44But, like, you're you're using a fake screwdriver trying to, like, fix an engine or whatever. You just don't have the right Yeah. You know, you have the right tools.
56:50And so you're trying to get from 30. And so it's like, well, then we went up a little, then we went down a little, then we went up a little, then we went down a little. And, you know, it it makes you draw false conclusions to be like, well, it's the, you know, the market can't bear anymore or whatever.
57:04Right? And so I think that there's I mean, there's a there's a component of luck in product. Like, your product like, we've got a really strong product, and so there's a natural growth, and and we could really probably screw we've screwed tons of things up and still grown.
57:17You know what mean? So, like like, the like, the is that a a boon to your success and a an outsized advantage?
57:24You know, like, having a a strong product that people naturally love that really is found that kind of lightning in the ball or, like, magic Yeah. Product market fit. Yeah.
57:32Of course. Like, I think that there's that aspect to it, but I think if you're stuck around, like, 30,000,000, you're like, shoot. I can't get to the next level.
57:40It's probably a toolkit thing. You know what I mean? Like, if you've already demonstrated that you can sell 30,000,000, you probably Can sell more.
57:48You can probably sell more. Yeah. Yeah.
57:50You know mean? Like, something's so it's probably a toolkit thing.
57:53And how fast did you think you got from 30 to a if you had to just estimate for that brand? I mean, we just our growth rate, you know, from, like, a CAGR perspective, you know, like, try to, like like, our peg is kinda like once you get I think once you get to maybe north of ten, fifteen, 20, like, if you can have a 30 plus CAGR, you know, where you're growing 30%, I think that that's pretty save us.
58:17That's about where we've been. Yeah. So what would that be?
58:20Is that 30 it's like a 30% growth annually. But okay. So that would be what's No.
58:25We grew faster than that, actually, I think. That's what I thought. Shoot.
58:27I don't know. I was gonna say, probably took what? Three years, five years?
58:30Yeah. I think that might be if I'm looking at because think about, like, from a portfolio standpoint, you know, we've got Keeglee and then NewReach and then a bunch of other stuff. And so yeah.
58:40So, like, across that, we're at about 30%, but I don't know what the specifics would be for
Josiah Grimes
58:44sub two off top. Because with us, we can get to the front end acquisition number. I mean, I'll tell you this.
58:50We can increase our front end acquisition. We'll increase it probably whatever what's 200 divided by a 125?
58:58That'd probably be, like, 50%? About 50%.
59:02Something like that. We'll we'll get there on the front end in, like, a couple of months. You know?
59:05Like, we can we can accelerate that front end growth quickly. Yeah.
59:09But our company is mainly, like what we're really good at is realizing and retaining back end revenue Yep. For, like, years. Yep.
59:18You know, it's like a b to b service, etcetera. Yep. So we'll we'll increase that front end volume.
59:23That will increase the top line and some of the profit, but where a lot of the top line and profit increase will come from is it'll and it'll take, from my estimate, probably a full eighteen to two years to really actually realize Yeah. Like, let's say, a sustained 50% increase in front end volume.
59:41Yep. You know? So I'm on kind of this two year track to 60, basically.
59:47That's pretty I mean, hey, dude. It's good that's a good thing there. Two years to 60 is not bad.
59:50That's a bad risk. Right? Yeah.
59:52Yeah. It's not bad. Killer, dude.
59:53And it's profitable too. So, you know, we we try to you know, top line is is cool, but, you know, it's like you can't deposit your top line at Chase.
1:00:01So I try to keep the profit healthy, and that's, you know, for any reason if the market goes down or you have especially when you're a big company, if you're running, like, low margins and you have a 20% decrease in top line because something happens with the economy or Iran or whatever it is Yeah. I mean, your profit can go real quick Yeah.
1:00:16You know, if the margin's not that high. Yeah. But I think I mean, that's one thing that I always thought was interesting is, like, people buy businesses that are losing money, right, but have revenue.
1:00:25Right? Because revenue in and of itself is valuable. And a lot of times, you know, like, if you're a skilled operator with the right tool belt, you can come in and be like, oh, you know, this business is driving
Cole Gordon
1:00:3370,000,000 in revenue and losing $6,000,000 a year. It's like, what an opportunity.
1:00:39You know? And so, like, I think That's true. Yeah.
1:00:42But that's
Josiah Grimes
1:00:43great growth, dude. Heck yeah. Well, thank you, man.
1:00:45So model question. So we have different models. I have the one now I have one company trying to go as hard in one company as possible kind of model.
1:00:55Yep. You have a bunch of brands. Yep.
1:00:57Right? I'm curious. What do you think are the pros and cons of, let's say, one company versus what you're doing.
1:01:06Mhmm. And, yeah, we'll just start there. Like, do think of the pros and cons?
1:01:09Well, I think that you can run multiple brands under, like, one
Cole Gordon
1:01:12united, you know, kind of leadership Yes. Saying and so, like, I think there's a benefit to that.
1:01:17Whereas, like, you know, we've got handful of companies outside of, like, NewReach has multiple brands. But then I also got Kigley, which has, you know, franchise network and, you know, over its corporate stores and whatnot and and, you know, movable type and, you know, a handful of other ventures.
1:01:33And I think that brands under a unified management system way easier. You know I mean?
1:01:38Because you get synergies. Right? Mhmm.
1:01:41Whereas if you're two separate companies, two separate management teams, there's different types of benefits from, like, a focus perspective. Yeah.
1:01:48Right? And it's really like so I think it's more of, you know, eat on an individual basis, you're trying to choose. Should these be run together so we get synergies across, or should this be more, like, run it separately?
1:01:59It supports its own management team. It needs its own it deserves its own focus. Right?
1:02:04Because we can scale to a certain level. What I think is the worst is when you don't have a clear cut. Right?
1:02:09Like, it's not one of those two. Or you start to build in different types of like, drastically different types of businesses that don't make sense within the thesis of the original company.
1:02:21You know mean? Like like, sometimes, for instance, like, you guys added a tech like, a technology layer, that might make a lot of sense and drive some recurring revenue and be really cool for your current existing base.
1:02:31And so, like, that aligns. But if it's like, you wanna go start car washes, it's like, well It doesn't make sense.
1:02:37Yeah. But you're like, but but my operator is really strong, and I'm gonna have him help me on this on the side. It's like, no.
1:02:42So when you have these brands, you are bringing them in thinking there's expansion revenue opportunities,
Josiah Grimes
1:02:49so to speak. Yeah. Or one brand synergies.
1:02:51Like, they're all running they're all running a similar playbook. Like, similar playbooks. Right?
1:02:54Like Yeah. So there could be shared knowledge, etcetera. Yeah.
1:02:56But think about somebody, let's say, who's, like, you know, there's they're
Cole Gordon
1:03:01they're thinking about maybe doing a portfolio model versus maybe they have this one opportunity that they could just go all in and try to scale that as big as possible. Right? Like, how would you say the pros and cons are between?
1:03:11They should they should go all in on one if that's, the if this is their if they don't have, like, family office money, you know mean, or whatever, or or they're not gonna place executives in each, but they're gonna come in and be the executive, then you should go all in on one. Right?
1:03:23Okay. And if you build that to a level where you've got, like so we built Keegley up for two years. I was the CEO there, and then I did the same thing that you kinda did.
1:03:31I started NewReach, and I was the CEO at Keegley and at NewReach for a while. But the reality is is, like, Keegley had a strong enough leadership team at that point that I could do that. Right.
1:03:39Right? And really strong partners too. So, like, that was the but I had to focus.
1:03:44If I had tried to launch both at the same time, that would have been so stupid. You know? Like so it's hard it's hard to run one company well.
1:03:52And generally speaking, if you're gonna try like, from the get go, if you're choosing which one to do, focus on one. If you already have a really strong leadership team in on one and maybe you backfill yourself as the CEO and start another, great. You got a portfolio company, backfill yourself as a CEO.
1:04:07That can work really well. How do you know, though, to like, it's like when to allocate your resources
Josiah Grimes
1:04:12between doing, let's say, like, kicking up the new thing Yep. Versus just, okay.
1:04:17I'm just gonna focus more on this. You know? Like, let's say you're at a point where you could go portfolio.
1:04:22Maybe you're at 15,000,000 a year with one company. Your leadership team's really strong. Yeah.
1:04:26Okay? How do you know you're like, okay. I you know, I'm pretty leveraged out of this.
1:04:30I could start this second thing or put in a CEO and start this second thing, or I could just stay CEO and just drive this further. Is there, like, a calculation
Cole Gordon
1:04:38Yeah, dude. You can think there. A 100%.
1:04:40And I think it's also, like, okay. What's my end goal with this company? I got 15,000,000.
1:04:44Let's say it's $15,000,000. I'm doing 4,000,000 in EBITDA. Like, okay.
1:04:49So if I've got that and I haven't sold a company yet, I don't have a nest egg of finances. Right? It might make a lot of sense for me to go sell that.
1:04:56You know, I don't know what I'm gonna get them. I don't know what type of company it is, but let's say can get an eight x multiple on my 4,000,000. Uh-huh.
1:05:01Right? And so whatever the heck that is, we know dude, if we had I should've given calculated I know.
1:05:07Yeah. What is that? Like, $20.32?
1:05:09Yeah. Something like that. But, like, you know, $32,000,000.
1:05:12It's like, okay. Cool. Now I've got a nest egg.
1:05:14Right? Like, maybe I maybe I only rolled 30%, so I kept or 20% or whatever. So I kept some money in that business, but I took some cash out so I can diversify, put in a new CEO.
1:05:24Right? And now I'm running this thing over here. Like, that might be the right call.
1:05:28You know mean? Versus, okay. I'm gonna go focus over here, and I'm gonna put a CEO over here and hope this 15,000,000 doesn't fall.
1:05:34You know I mean? Like, that wouldn't make Yeah. Sense.
1:05:37Whereas if it's, like, if it's a rocket ship and it's, like, I'm gonna be at 30, 45, or whatever.
1:05:45It's like, at that point, it depends on I mean, for me, dude, I like starting new things. So, like, I have a Most of us do. Yeah.
1:05:51It's like my problem, dude. It's like, love starting new things. Like, it's gets me fired up.
1:05:57It's super exciting. Like, I love it. So I weigh that into my equation too.
1:06:01You know what mean? Like Yeah. Yeah.
1:06:02When I'm choosing where, you know, like, how many things to focus on or whatever, it's like the right thing is probably to focus on one always, but God didn't build me that way.
1:06:12Yeah. So, like, I like to do I like to do multiple things and and yeah.
1:06:18So I think you gotta cut away and you're like, there's the dollars and cents component of it. There's are these cash flow or, like, am I trying to get cash flow out of this for forever, like an annuity, or am I trying to exit this at some point?
1:06:30And then there's, you know, like, growth trajectory for the company. I mean, like, is is it growing rapidly? Well, if it is, I probably continue on this ride.
Josiah Grimes
1:06:40I don't know. There's there's a bet. Yeah.
1:06:41I I think that you could find a formula if you look at diminishing marginal returns of continued effort within that main company. Yep. And also how efficient like, what's the actual production function?
1:06:50Like, how efficient are the inputs versus the outputs? Yeah. Like, if it's still if it's insanely efficient and you have this thing as operating as good it can it can as it can be Yeah.
1:06:58Which is a hard thing to know if you really have it Yep. And you're approaching a diminishing marginal return for TAM or whatever reason we wanna say it is Yep.
1:07:06Then, yeah, it could make sense to do something new. Yeah. You said even a new product line within the same company or a new portfolio company altogether.
1:07:13Yeah, dude. That's kinda how I think about it. Yeah.
1:07:14You said that that was money, bro. We should I thought a lot about this. That was fire.
Cole Gordon
1:07:19My one maybe my one little thing that just extra little sprinkle on top there would be, like, one thing you wanna consider is if you plan on exiting the company, you should have prepped that company to to at least take the next step for whoever you're acquiring. You know what I mean? It makes sense.
1:07:30You know what mean? Like, so you gotta you wanna write that in because you're, like, you know if you're selling a company because it's about to die, I mean, like, that's so lame.
1:07:38Yeah. But I mean, like, know, like, I alright. But you should be baking in, hey.
1:07:43This is gonna at least double, you know I mean? From wherever I'm leaving it. So, like but it's okay because you're gonna get the cash out and you wanna deploy the cash better than you would, you know, from reaping what you've already prepared for it to double or whatever.
1:07:54So, I don't know. There's a there's a So you're in an interesting position because with the portfolio, you've tested a lot of offers. And I'm curious, what's from, like, an offer level Mhmm.
1:08:02What's the difference between an offer that just is, like, okay to lukewarm
Josiah Grimes
1:08:07Yep. Versus nuclear?
Cole Gordon
1:08:09Nuclear. So, like, I think if you're on the front end and it's just like, hey. Fun testing stuff or whatever.
1:08:17There's I mean, there's so many there's so many factors, honestly. Like, even from I mean, there's different things that are popular and there's certain things that aren't.
1:08:25That's one. Yeah. You know, like, you you're looking for tailwinds.
1:08:27Right? Like, you you you're looking for tailwinds. So we track, you know, our freaking 20,000 something or other different education platforms to try to find waves of, like, what are people interested in right be.
1:08:36Yeah. Yeah. So, like, what are what are what are people interested in right now?
1:08:40What's going well? Where are people you know, we track all the way through their little marketing apparatus to figure out, like, okay.
1:08:47Like, what do we think their metrics look like CAC, LTV? And, you know, we for those, we're trying to be second mover. And so, like, you can come in and and have a lot of a good base to understand, like, why something should win in this market.
1:09:01So I think there's that. The the reason why offers fail, dude oh, here's something. I don't know.
1:09:06This is probably a terrible analogy, but alright. I was watching National Geographic. Okay?
1:09:10And they're they're basically walking walking you through how to, like, you know, trap a wolf. And the guy goes out there, and he's like, it's like, alright.
1:09:19We're today, we're gonna try to, like, trap a wolf. And he, like, takes his trap, and he, like, puts it down, and then he, like, puts a t bone stake in there. And he's, like, you know, like, scurries off or whatever.
1:09:28Right? And, like, the wolf is just, like, no freaking white dude. Walks past.
1:09:31He's like, I'm not going over there. Yeah. And he's like, dang it.
1:09:34Right? And you're like, okay. Well, we're gonna try something else.
1:09:37And, like, basically, you know, in order to actually trap a wolf, dude, you like it it had to be, like, fresh snow. They had to freaking boil the trap.
1:09:46You know I mean? Like, the meat had to look like it was an animal that had just died. You know what mean?
1:09:51Like and, uh, like, they had to put tree branches that had fallen from the tree to create a cubby so that the wolf would walk in from the front instead of snagging it from the back. Like, there's all these different little things. And then they had to, like, cover their tracks a certain way, yada yada yada.
1:10:04And then finally, they might catch a wolf. Right? And it was like, holy crap, dude.
1:10:09It's for a wolf. Right? It's, like, supposed to just be an animal.
1:10:12You think they just eat the food. And I think that so not to call prospects wolves.
1:10:19Okay? Bear with me on this. But, like, when you're making an offer, I think the number one reasons why, you know, like, products or offers or anything you wanna sell doesn't work is because the way you prepared it was, like, not like, you couldn't trap a wolf.
1:10:36Yeah. Know what packaging. Yeah.
1:10:38It's like the you couldn't trap a wolf with it. Like, you the way it comes into it's not the the through line between when they see the ad to where they could buy on the page, those don't make sense. Right?
1:10:47Yeah. They don't land perfectly. Or, like, you know, it's like it's really like, we had one that we were you know, it was just a test for an offer recently for some home services stuff as we're kinda like Interesting.
1:10:59Yeah. So there's a lot of neat like, I don't know.
1:11:01It's fun. There's so many cool things to make, but we were testing that.
1:11:05And, like, one of the things that was a big problem with the funnel is that they would come through and then, like, right before they would register, it would be, in Phoenix, Arizona.
1:11:15And so, like, people would get all amped up and then be, like, wait, I gotta go to Phoenix, Arizona for this. Right. Yeah.
1:11:19You know what mean? Like, where's nothing on the front end prepared them for that and the marketing was national. And so, like, as soon as we removed that, our marketing metrics normalized and the thing worked.
1:11:27You know mean? So, like, the there's things like or at least I hope it worked.
1:11:34I haven't checked back, dude. Maybe this is all live. It worked.
1:11:36It worked. It worked. Amen.
1:11:38I think it actually I think yeah. But, like, that was the biggest like, people stopped right there. You know mean?
1:11:42Like, that was what was stopping them. And so, like, you just gotta really be thoughtful.
1:11:47Like, you're you're interacting with other people. Be at a high enough level of quality that people are wowed. Yeah.
1:11:52It's the same thing with service. Like, there's a difference between you know, I can't remember.
1:11:56I think this might be a a Ritz Carlton thing or something, but they're you know, like, someone's at the they're at an event, and the person walks over and is like like, hey. There's no coffee at the event or whatever.
1:12:07Like, know, is there coffee? I thought there was gonna be coffee here. And the person's like, oh, you know, like, no.
1:12:11Like, we're so sorry. You know, there's there's no coffee. Like, I'm I'm really sorry.
1:12:14I understand coffee is really not like it would be nice to have, but, you know, like, the hotel has certain rules and we aren't able to put coffee in the rooms, like, you know, and I really apologize about that. And it's like, is that good service? It's like, well, I mean, it wasn't bad service, but what's better service is like, what's your coffee order?
1:12:28I'll go get you I'm I'm going to Starbucks right now. I'll get you a coffee. Exactly.
1:12:31That's better service. Right? And it's like that people are like, I'm in for that, dude.
1:12:37Like, that's freaking cool. And that's the difference between trapping a wolf and not trapping a wolf. It's like, do you is it so good?
1:12:43Right? Like, can you make it so that people are like, I haven't seen that before. Right?
1:12:47Like, can your copy be so good? People are like, this is a joy to read. Can your can your product be so good that people are like, dude, this is like freaking working on an iPad.
1:12:55You know what mean? Like, it's something that that's the can you take it one ring above what's out there?
Josiah Grimes
1:13:00And if you even if you get close to that Yeah. You know, like I like how your offer insights come from watching National Geographic That's on a
Cole Gordon
1:13:08right, dude.
Josiah Grimes
1:13:09Let me tell you about National Geographic.
Cole Gordon
1:13:11That's why if you're talking about offer creation, you probably should listen to Cole Let me tell you about wolves.
Josiah Grimes
1:13:16Me tell you about wolves. I I like that. I like that.
1:13:19How do you make some of these because you're working with educators in the portfolio. Right? You need to harness, like, their zone of genius, their expertise, etcetera.
1:13:26How do you make them happy? You know? How do you, like, uh, because, obviously, you know, you guys are doing a lot of the work and a lot of the operations and stuff, which is very important.
1:13:34You know? How do you make sure they value that? They see the the right amount of value there,
Cole Gordon
1:13:40that they're also happy? It's a win win. Yep.
1:13:42Yeah. What's the biggest I you've got two I mean so I think the first division is between subject matter experts, and then we call them, like, brand visionaries, but, like, the people that we put like, they're on the front end of, you know, like, reaching the world with the the product for the first time or introducing people to it.
1:13:57Right. And those can be the same person. They can also be different.
1:14:00Right? Subject matter experts are I mean, some of the coolest people ever, they might they, like, they love curriculum design.
1:14:09They wanna live in that world. Right? And they're very good at laying things out in frameworks that people can ingest and understand and relate to, but also learn from.
1:14:19You know what mean? And then implement and see the result. Whereas, you know, people that are that you're gonna use more to, like, reach the world are probably better storytellers.
1:14:27They're probably more naturally interesting. You know what I mean? Like, that's their that's their gifting.
1:14:32Right? And they probably enjoy creating a bunch of, you know, like, social media type content. Whereas your your quintessential maybe subject matter experts are more like they read a lot, they have gone through a lot of different programs, and they know exactly how humans learn so they can build the the curriculum correctly.
1:14:51So, like, I think that there's a divide there. There's not always in a lot of people try to bridge those two things and then end up like, either you find a unicorn like, exceptionally talented, which we have some of those that's really phenomenal on both. Like, they can educate really well so people get it, and they're super interesting and inviting on the front end.
1:15:07Right. Right? So, like, I mean, if you can find that person, that's amazing.
1:15:12You're gonna compensate that person obviously more. Whereas, you know, I think the the more normal is someone can be focused on the front end and really bring people in, and you're probably paying them some type of affiliate, you know, something along those lines, they get the benefit of, like, you're spending a lot of money maybe to ads.
1:15:31You know? Like, so they're coupled with your product. Your product has a lot of name recognition, so it's beneficial to them.
1:15:37They get to be on people's feeds all over the place, so people they'll find their their personal socials, um, so they can grow their personal brands. They get benefits like all these natural, um, second effect benefits. Um, whereas your subject matter experts, for the most part, it's more of your it's more of your quintessential hiring program.
1:15:54Right? You're gonna post the job. These are the requirements.
1:15:57You want them to have a certain experience,
Josiah Grimes
1:15:59from, like, a curriculum design, whatever. Nice. Okay.
1:16:02Little pivot. Uh, what do you do with your money in terms of investing? So and and I wanna throw in a little caveat here because I'm curious how much you actually because, obviously, Keeglee, for people who don't know, you're one of the biggest wholesalers in the nation.
1:16:17Then a lot of your real or a lot of your brands are around real estate in one way or another. Do you invest a ton in real estate? Or, like, I know, you know, it's really interesting.
1:16:26Ryan Serhant, for instance, he's obviously, like, you know, big big broker or whatever. He didn't invest in real estate at all because for him, it's like, well, my active income is basically real estate.
1:16:35So I wanna diversify with my passive income. Yep. And, you know, one of my kinda maxims I do my wealth sort of generation from is you wanna be concentrate you wanna create wealth through concentrate yeah.
1:16:48Concentrated act active income and then stay wealthy by Diversified. Passive income. Yeah.
1:16:53That's right. So I'm curious, you know, how do you think about your investments portfolio?
1:16:58Do you invest in a lot of real estate, etcetera? And also, I'm selfishly asking because I'm like the you you know Jim Kramer where they're like inverse Kramer? And it's like, if you inverse Kramer, you base I'm base for real estate, you could just inverse all my investments.
1:17:11And if there was a way to short my real estate investments, you'd probably be, like, worth a $100,000,000. Oh, crap. Dude.
1:17:18I'm like, if I invest in your real estate fund, it's bad news. It's bad news.
1:17:23I'm just well, it is actually true. Hopefully hopefully, not anymore. Shoot.
1:17:27Sorry, dude. No. Anyways, go on.
1:17:28Well, you're in a lot of, like, single family too. And Well, I was. Yeah.
1:17:31Okay. Yeah. For people who don't know, I did single family, lost a lot of money.
1:17:35Then did Airbnb, lost pretty much all my money. Then did Dude.
1:17:41I did syndications, but I did that right before interest rates took off. Lost a lot of money. And so I've had had some funds return, and it's not all zero.
1:17:50But out of, like, let's say, a 12% allocation to the portfolio that I have, I'll probably take a 5% haircut.
1:17:59Okay. Like, when it's all said and done, that'll probably be 7% of my portfolio
Cole Gordon
1:18:03Got it. Going back to the bank. But, anyways, that cuts.
1:18:06Share with share with That sucks. With me your portfolio wisdom. Yeah.
1:18:09I don't know if I have a lot of portfolio wisdom, but I I agree with your maxim basically on, yeah, make your money concentrated and then go broad, diversify, and that's how you invest and grow your money and protect it.
1:18:22So I like that. I think that maybe the one difference is, like, I have a unique window into real estate, and so I can make better I can have an advantage. You know I mean?
1:18:30Yeah. You So I'd still have some of my money in real estate, but In multifamily?
1:18:35Multifamily. Okay. Yeah.
1:18:36But principally, the my portfolio probably looks like most, you know, like, a lot of equities Yeah.
1:18:42Some annuities, that type of stuff. And then just I mean I mean, we have it with a wealth a local wealth adviser.
1:18:50Right? And, I mean, they've got, what, $6,000,000,000
Josiah Grimes
1:18:52asset Are we with the same person?
Cole Gordon
1:18:55You use Do? Do. So we use do, but I don't use do for my Oh, okay.
1:18:58Financial management stuff. Yeah. We use Wild Wealth.
1:19:00Yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah.
1:19:02Which is actually the dude's last name. K? It's not like he's wild over there with the dollars.
1:19:06I can't I actually just like Wild Wealth. That was interesting. Good, dude.
1:19:09Literally good name. Good name. But, yeah, so we use them.
1:19:13And then but, like, I mean, they they do some smart things. I mean, like, picking 10 stocks instead of just investing in the S and P 500 because then you can take a loss on, like you know?
1:19:22What's a direct indexer? Yeah. Exactly.
1:19:23Yeah. There's super advanced stuff I could
Josiah Grimes
1:19:26I have some really interesting options for that. How much do you ascribe to, you know, the whole a lot of the macro economists like Ray Dalio, and there's a bunch of others, but he's the most prominent one.
1:19:37Yep. With focusing do you think more about, like, international emerging markets, gold, etcetera?
1:19:44My portfolio is basically probably half 45% just good old, like, US equities, S and P.
1:19:50Yep. Or, uh, maybe there's certain small cap or heavier tilt towards AI growth or whatever Yeah. Type of stuff.
1:19:57But it's mainly, like, index funds for S and P. And then with the oh, sorry. No.
1:20:0150% is equities. But then within that 50%, maybe, like, 70% is US equities, and then the rest is international emerging markets.
1:20:08Yep. And then I have, you know, probably 10% gold, 12% real estate, 7% crypto, or maybe 10% crypto now.
1:20:16It goes up it goes up and down so much. Depends on when you calculate it. Yep.
1:20:19Then I have some private company holdings that I I would say about another 10% and private companies that I would say I would call it ventures. Some of them actively involved, some of them not.
1:20:29Yep. And then I'd have to I'd have to go through the sheet to figure out cash bonds.
1:20:34That's probably another 15%. And then some stuff I'm not thinking about. But I'm curious because I kinda have it set up to where it's a little bit of like a US dollar decline
Cole Gordon
1:20:43tilt. Yep. Do you think that way at all or no?
1:20:46I mean, I think that there's a lot of opportunity in emerging markets. Like, I had a buddy that he flew out to Turkey. This is a couple years ago.
1:20:52He spent all his time. He's like, this he's like, this doesn't make any sense. He's like, it was the the property plant and equipment of this company.
1:20:59Like, the the book value was, like, $850,000,000, and their market cap was, like, $16,000,000. And so he was like, what the frick?
1:21:06You know, this isn't Turkey. I years ago before it blew up. But he was like, like, he should have put a million bucks in.
1:21:12He put a $100 in. Right? And it was like a 52 bagger or something.
1:21:16So it's like worth $5,000,000 or something now because, you know, basically, Turkey is a market kind of exploded.
1:21:23Right? Yeah. And so, like, I think you have an opportunity for some outsized returns.
1:21:28Like, India is really interesting right now. Japan's pretty interesting. So I think that
Josiah Grimes
1:21:32I think it's fun to I enjoy participating in that type of stuff. Yeah. To be clear, I don't do that single picking.
1:21:37I just index fund an emerging, you know, emerging market ETF. I mean, I think
Cole Gordon
1:21:43I mean, I think it's I think it's a good idea. Yeah. I'm just more my my drive forward is less sophisticated than yours.
1:21:49Okay. Mine's just like, I think it's cool, dude. If I could go to, like, India and be like, yeah, man.
1:21:52This is a cool company. Make slippers, bro. I got some dollars in here.
1:21:55Yeah. Yeah. So I think mine's less sophisticated.
1:21:58Yours is more like huge, you know, macro trend. Are we gonna see this and can I hedge against it?
1:22:03But think it's smart. Okay. Yeah.
1:22:05It's it's it's weirdly like
Josiah Grimes
1:22:07you you know, I don't know if you you have this, but I go through periods of being very obsessed with one topic. Mhmm. And the last three, four months have been, like, macro investing Really?
1:22:15For some reason. Yeah. Just, like, reading all about that.
1:22:17Well, it also makes you feel like the world's gonna collapse. So you're just like, okay. Yeah.
1:22:21Great. Like, I'm preparing for the collapse. I'm preparing for the collapse.
1:22:24For the good old collapse. Cool. Last thing we'll touch on is AI.
1:22:29Is there anything interesting you're doing with AI stuff. Companies with AI agents?
Cole Gordon
1:22:33A lot of fun things. We we're about to relaunch the movables movable AIs new platform will relaunch here in two months, So that's exciting.
1:22:43So we're pumped about that. It should be pretty cool. Then the as far as AI just in our companies, I mean, like, the it's really been a benefit to us.
1:22:52We haven't done anything crazy as far it I feel like maybe I shouldn't say this, but I feel like we've done all the regular stuff that most people are doing with AI. The stuff that we're it's like just inside the companies from an operational efficiency perspective.
1:23:05Some of the stuff that we're doing we're that I feel like is really freaking cool on the s I side of things is we're gonna launch it's called Mollie, but m a l l I. And that basically like, it's an inside of new reach, but more or less facilitates community.
1:23:18It's kinda like if you were to take, you know, like, OpenClaw and then you plug it into all the data across the community. So if you've got a property, you're like, hey.
1:23:26I got this deal. Blah blah blah. Oh, interesting.
1:23:27Yeah. And it's like, well, because because especially with real estate, just for people, there's a lot of cooperation
Josiah Grimes
1:23:32that can happen that's different than maybe if somebody was starting, you know, a
Cole Gordon
1:23:36ecommerce business or something. Yeah. Yeah.
1:23:39Yeah. Exactly. So it facilitates that.
1:23:40It facilitates the, like, actual deal flow by, like, oh, yeah. Let me connect you with this owners club member. Drops him in a group chat.
1:23:46That's good. And then tracks, like, you know, one, there's a huge utility from a data perspective that allows us to be that is useful for the whole community. And then also just facilitate ROI for members of the community.
1:23:59Like, oh, you need a lender? Here's a lender. Right?
1:24:01Like and to do that on a a level that's, like, so granular that
Josiah Grimes
1:24:06I feel like it's gonna be hugely impactful. So we launched that. We'll launch that here shortly, which will be cool.
1:24:10Yeah. I would agree. We have stuff where we're automating certain workflows.
1:24:14A lot of it is really right now just making certain employees more efficient with what they already do. Yep.
1:24:20Like, a big example I can give you is, like, this one's easy for me to speak on. It's, sales manager QC. Yep.
1:24:26And so we have, like, certain dashboards that because it that you can't quality control every call.
1:24:32Yep. But you can train an AI to kind of, number one, do a first pass and then really let you know which are the ones you should, you know, QC. Because a salesperson, I mean, one call they could do really good, next call it's like, you they forget everything they you.
1:24:44Right? So there's that. Another really interesting one that actually might be interesting for you is so, you know, like, obviously, in marketing, you can basically hold the marketing team accountable to, like, an MQL Yep.
1:24:56Where we're like, okay. If they answer this on the app and they show up and blah blah blah, they meet this qual qualifications, they're a MQL and they're this score of an MQL.
1:25:05Like, we have threes, fours, fives, and, like, they could be a 3.3 or a 4.2. And that's based on a variety of things they could put in the application. You could even do a super sophisticated, for instance, you know, comp if they have an email that's at company name Yep.
1:25:19It's a higher it no matter I guarantee you, it's a higher quality lead than Gmail. And then weirdly, we found, like, Yahoo and some of these other ones are higher quality than Gmail.
1:25:31That's pretty strange. If if they're on Outlook, dude, straight to the top. Outlook, that's a good that's that's a good one.
1:25:36Right? So you could go super sophisticated with that. But, you know, the problem is is let's say you have a MQL that's on the calendar.
1:25:44Well, like, even if even if you have two MQLs with the same app answers, who shows up on the call is wildly different in quality. Mhmm. Like, anybody who's taken sales calls would say that.
1:25:53Right? Because who shows up on the call is gonna be different Yeah. You know?
1:25:56One might have tons of intent and watched a bunch of content, and one might not do. And granted, maybe you could find that on the application too. Yep.
1:26:03But what would be very interesting is a rolling quality score day to day that rolls up to weeks and months Mhmm. That is a qualitative because, basically, an MQL is a quantitative based score.
1:26:14Yep. And then you can't rely on the salespeople because they just say it's good or it's bad based on if they're closed. So then with the AI, it can basically analyze the prospect's transcripts, their level of intent, and all this stuff Yeah.
1:26:26And use your certain criteria, really the same stuff you do in the application Mhmm. And then be like, hey. You know, our MQL score is still 3.3 Mhmm.
1:26:34But we did see a decrease to 2.7 this week in the qualitative score. And it's something to actually finally validate the conversation of, like, when your marketing team says the leads are fine and the sales team says they're not. Yeah.
1:26:46And you're like, well, the data says it's fine, but your sales manager's like, no, man. Like, I swear to god, I reviewed all these calls. Like, it's it's bad.
1:26:53Something happened. Everyone's been homeless. Like, you guys did something.
1:26:56So this actually could finally answer that with a metric. Yeah.
1:27:00That's really cool. That's, like, what I'm quite passionate about. Yeah.
1:27:03That's really cool. Yeah. Cool.
1:27:05Anywhere you want people to go, find out about you, follow-up, and No. Just keep watching cool stuff. Alright.
1:27:10So the CTA is so subscribe. Subscribe, guys. There you go.
1:27:13How about that? Thank you for coming on, man. Heck yeah.
1:27:15This is George. If you enjoyed this podcast, you're also probably gonna like this podcast I also did recently that you can check out by clicking the screen.
§ · For Joe
The 30M toolkit problem.
Operator playbook
If you sold your way to 30 million, you can get to 100 — but the next level is built on infrastructure, not a better offer.
- Map your scale staircase: zero to one is about faith and a single skill; one to ten is the hardest phase (structure, content volume, professional maturity); ten to thirty is data integrity and task management; thirty to a hundred is toolkit upgrade.
- Hire for IQ first, conscientiousness second, stability third — and weight stability more heavily as you move up the hierarchy. One unstable director disrupts 24 people.
- Use the wolf-trap test on every funnel: walk from ad to checkout as a first-time prospect and find every point where something unexpected stops them. Fix friction before testing creative.
- Build the memo culture early: have candidates and employees write memos. The quality of the memo is the quality of their thinking.
- If you are stuck at a plateau, stop blaming the offer. Ask whether your data is clean, whether your directors are experienced, and whether your task management system has full org adoption.
§ · For You
What this means if you are building anything.
For operators and builders
Every plateau you hit is a toolkit problem, not a talent problem — you just need the next set of skills.
- Find the skill closest to value creation in whatever industry you are entering, then get close to the person doing it best.
- When you are hiring, do not award title as a substitute for comp — it creates salary expectations you cannot meet and instability you cannot afford.
- Before you build the whole product, test if anyone will buy it. A landing page and some traffic is a 24-hour answer; nine months of building is not.
- Your wealth creation strategy and your wealth preservation strategy should be different: concentrate to build it, diversify to keep it.
- Structure makes you more efficient; bureaucracy makes you less efficient. Learn to tell the difference before your team does.